Doktor Glass Read Free

crossed his thick arms. “What for? I get paid when I work; more I stand around here, less I make.”
    “Mend your tone or you’ll be on the street.”
    “That’s enough, gentlemen.” Langton raised a hand to stop the older man from speaking, then turned to the docker. “Tell me what happened.”
    Connolly nodded toward the enclosed grey water. “I was on my way to the office, to see if I could get anything for today. Healey was gang foreman last week so I didn’t get a ha’penny, even though I can do the work of two of his cronies.”
    Langton knew that the dockers found work through Company-appointed foremen. They had to report every morning and hope they found a fair-minded man giving out the day’s employment. If not, they didn’t work, just as in Langton’s grandfather’s day. “Go on.”
    “Well, I was walking alongside the ramp over there, where they sometimes haul the boats out, when I saw a shape in the water. Thought it was a tarpaulin or slung cargo, but closer I got, the more it looked like a man. So I grabbed a boathook and fished it in. Gave me a turn, it did, and I don’t mind admitting it.”
    Langton looked down at the edge of the man’s face, where the flesh became raw red bone.
    “Robbery, obviously,” the brown-suited man said. “We get a few bodies washed up every month with their throats slit or heads bashed in.”
    “Nothing like this?”
    The man hesitated. “Not to my knowledge.”
    “And you are…”
    “Perkins, Inspector. Assistant piermaster.”
    Connolly spat eloquently into the dock again but said nothing. Perkins glared at him. “Of course, it could be someone inside the docks. You never know what these layabouts will get up to.”
    Langton did not want to get diverted, and so he told Connolly, “Give your address to Sergeant McBride here and you can go back to work. Mr. Perkins, have you any idea who the dead man might be?”
    Perkins didn’t look down at the body. “How could I? Besides, he wouldn’t be one of our workers, not dressed like that.”
    “Pardon me?”
    “Well, the boots, the trousers and waistcoat: They’re issued by the TSC.”
    Langton glanced at the bridge. “The Transatlantic Span Company?”
    “I’m sure of it, Inspector. You can’t help but notice them, swanking about with their pockets full of silver, even though most of them are no better than navvies. That’s why I’m sure it’s robbery.”
    As if speaking to himself, Langton said, “But they didn’t take his gold chain or rings.”
    “Pardon me?”
    Langton looked up. “Where can we find you if we need you?”
    “That brick cottage next to the dock gates, but—”
    “Thank you, Mr. Perkins. We’ll finish our work here as soon as we can.”
    As Perkins left, Langton checked the dead man’s pockets. He found no identification, but a fine steel chain secured a key to the man’s belt; triangular in shape, with the simplistic outline of a bridge engraved into the metal, it reminded Langton of keys used by watchmen to prove they had done the rounds of their assigned buildings orroutes—they would slip the key into a suitable clock that time-stamped their presence.
    A guard or watchman would no doubt have unfettered access to the Span. He could identify its weak points, its vulnerabilities. And he would know that the Queen herself would inaugurate the Span in five days.
    Langton waved forward the two waiting stretcher bearers. As they rolled the body onto the canvas stretcher, Langton saw the whole face in full. It grinned back at him like some gruesome effigy. Langton closed his eyes and took a deep breath; when he looked again, the bearers had loaded their cargo in their horse-drawn black wagon.
    “Are you all right, sir?”
    “I’m fine, Sergeant. Fine.”
    McBride nodded at the last man remaining, a bearded giant broad across the shoulders. “What shall I do with him, sir?”
    “Who is he?”
    “Olsen, sir, a stoker from the steam brigantine
Asención
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